SAN DIEGO — Valorie McGee opened her front door to a frustrating scene Tuesday night: Water pooling on her property, flooding her garage, and rising dangerously close to entering her home.
McGee blames the city for this repeating problem. She says a drainage channel up the street combines with water flowing down the road, creating a river that jumps the curb by her home – flooding her property.
Knowing it was coming, McGee put sandbags on the sidewalk, but the force of the water easily pushed them away.
“It's just a mess,” she said with frustration in her voice. “Everything in my garage - like clothes, shoes, name it - it's all trashed.”
McGee has spent thousands of dollars trying to fix the problem on her own. She installed a drain in her driveway, bought a pump, and even lined her home with sandbags, but nothing stops the flooding.
She's also been calling the city for years, begging for help.
“I've been trying to contact them, sending them emails, getting calls back, they direct me to one company - one department, and then that department directs me to another department and that department directs me to another department.”
Adding to McGee's frustration, there's a storm drain on a curb just up from her house, but it’s positioned in such a way that it doesn't catch any of the water that's heading toward her home. “This has to change,” she said. “I can't keep living like this.”
McGee showed us an email she got in February where the city acknowledges there's a problem - even saying - "should significant rains be in the forecast in the area, our team will respond to the location and enact any necessary flood prevention measures."
But McGee showed us videos proving that clearly didn't happen during this latest storm.
Working for You, we reached out to the city looking for answers. They told us a statement would be coming, but hours later - nothing.
UPDATE: The City of San Diego sent CBS 8 the following statement on March 24:
"Prior to the recent rains, the City of San Diego sent a team to evaluate conditions surrounding the property located [on] Margerum Ave. The entire residential development was built in the mid-1970s by a private developer. For this specific home, it was constructed below the street level with a driveway that slopes downhill toward the home.
City staff plan to conduct a more comprehensive assessment and determine the cause of this flooding. The City is also researching any possible modifications that may have affected stormwater flows."
We'll stay on top of this and continue to push the city to work on correcting this situation.